Something clicked for Turk Telekom
When Turk Telekom was staring at a 1-8 record after nine rounds, the Turkish team could not have looked further from last year’s side, which was 7-2 at that same point in the campaign. The club was already onto its second head coach of the season, too, with Selcuk Ernak replacing Nenad Canak after Round 3. The playoffs looked a long way off, particularly with the new format only seeing six teams from each 10-team group advance, but something began to click from Round 10 onwards.
December 5, 2023, saw Turk Telekom end its seven-game losing streak by defeating one of the surprise packages this season, U-BT Cluj-Napoca, and that victory kickstarted a memorable second half of the campaign as Coach Ernak’s side went 7-2 to steal the final playoff spot. Following a summer of upheaval with regard to the playing roster, the pieces started to fall into place and a hierarchy began to be established.
That hierarchy was led by Tyrone Wallace, who was torching teams on a night-by-night basis in the second half of the season, in addition to acting as the team’s primary playmaker. It wasn’t just Wallace, though. Steven Enoch and James Palmer, two players who – like Wallace – signed for Turk Telekom last summer, started to show more consistency in their play, making the Turkish side’s Big Three a huge threat. What’s more, despite not being one of the clear stars, the late-season pickup of Jarrod Jones added veteran know-how and a player who could contribute right away, with Turk Telekom going 4-1 since his arrival.